5 Times Someone Found Tony Stark and 1 Time They Didn't Have To
by Elizabird
Summary: The world trusts Iron Man. The world hates Tony Stark. It was his own choice, not to come out as Iron Man. But as they move in, as they get closer to Iron Man, Tony can't help but notice how they loathe Tony Stark and love Iron Man. Things are never as easy as they seem. [Featuring Science Bros and Clint and Tony just bro-ing. Identity porn and angst. 7 chapters.]
1. Before

**0\. Prologue.**

Tony isn't sure why he doesn't just tell the world who he is.

It would be easier, anyway.

He's pretty sure; no, he's _definite_ that Fury has to have at least some idea of what's going on, but Tony hacks into the SHIELD database every few days and deletes anything that points to the connection between Iron Man and Tony Stark, so Fury can never be certain.

He just doesn't. He's spend years on Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. He doesn't want to ruin it by turning out to be some guy in a suit; he gets Rhodey to do most of the 'dropping subtle hints to the public' PA stuff, anyway. War Machine is a handy stand in.

Plus, if he revealed himself to the world, quite a lot of people would want to kill him.

More than there are already, anyway.

XxXxX

"Agent!" Tony exclaims in false delight as Coulson walks into the penthouse suite. Seriously, doesn't Coulson have a _life?_ Does his wardrobe consist only of snappy suits and snazzy ties in varying shades of navy? Would it kill him to wear a t-shirt?

"Stark," Coulson nods, completely ignoring how he's totally walked in on Tony sweet-talking Pepper into bed. Seriously. _Seriously._ "Stark, I know you two are - are close. Is Iron Man at home? I have a proposition for him. One that is com- _pletely_ confidential." The emphasis Coulson puts on 'completely' lets Tony know what he basically knew already; no one at SHIELD trusts him for even a second. Especially Coulson.

"He's out," Tony says, sharper than he meant to. "I'll take it, no problem." He stands, handing Pepper the flute of champagne, which she takes with a put-upon expression.

"I have something for you, as well," Coulson says grudgingly, tapping the briefcase at his side.

Oh. Surprise! Coulson doesn't trust him.

Tony doesn't care. At all.

"I don't like having things handed to me," he smirks irritatingly, holding up his hands as Coulson shoves two black document wallets at him.

"Luckily, I _do,"_ Pepper says with a smooth smile. "Tony, play nice."

"Nice?" He splutters at her. "I am nice. I am the nicest sonofabitch you ever did see."

"Give that to Iron Man as soon as he gets back, and don't you dare look at it. It's confidential." Coulson's raised eyebrows tell what his words don't.

No one trusts Tony; the _world_ trusts Iron Man.

"Will do, Agent," Tony says and claps him on the back. "Will do."

XxXxX

The Avengers Initiative.

Oh.

Terrific.

XxXxX

"Howard?" Says the man Tony hoped to never see in real life, and the clear shock and horror and overwhelming relief is so much, too much, a mix of emotions so intense Tony feels guilty for _not_ being his father. It's horrible to be reminded of how much he looks like Howard. Too much like Howard.

"Hello, Captain Rogers," Tony smiles lazily. "I'm-"

"You're not Howard."

The photos that Howard had framed and which took pride of place all over the house didn't do _justice_ to this man. Tony had thought he could bear it out without much trouble, just because he had to. Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, was unemotional. As it is, his hands bunch into instinctive fists. "I'm not Howard."

"You - but -" Captain Rogers looks like a kicked puppy. "Who are you?"

"Tony Stark's who the fuck I am," Tony grins, leaning against the doorframe and shoving his hands into his pockets, assuming an air of ease. "Howard's dead and gone, dead and gone."

" _Tony_ Stark."

"Tony Stark."

Captain Rogers nods once, military and businesslike, smiling in friendly greeting. "If you are anything like your father, you are a man I look forward to working with, Stark."

Tony conceals his wince. _Anything. Anything like your father. I am nothing. I am nothing like him._ "I think you'll like working with my friend a little more. I'm nothing like that old bastard."

"Howard was my closest friend," Captain Rogers scowls, the welcoming smile falling like a mask.

"Yeah. Sure thing, Capsicle." Tony layers his words with as much sarcasm as possible. Howard Stark was so close to this man that he died while obsessing over him, but like _hell_ Tony is going to tell him that. He grins lopsidedly and lopes out of the room they're keeping Cap in on the Helicarrier, away to find _someone_ who isn't _him._

Tony can't believe he's done this. Can't believe he's allowed himself to believe this was a good idea. As he walks confidently down one of the many corridors, ignoring the sideways glances from SHIELD agents, he's internally cursing; he's joined the Avengers as a technical consultant and Iron Man has joined the Avengers as an Avenger.

Oh, God, he is so, so screwed.

"Stark," comes a crackling voice over the PA, breaking his reverie, "Stark. Meet at the bridge. Avengers Assemble. Where the hell is Iron Man?"

Screwed.

XxXxX

"Where is Iron Man?"

"We need Iron Man, Stark, not some spoiled billionaire. Why the hell are you even here, I swear - I need you on hand, sure, but I need your buddy way more. Get his ass here right now."

"He's _busy,_ I said," Tony snaps in irritation. "Fuck you, Fury, he's taking this seriously."

"I haven't had contact with the guy since Phil gave you that file. How do I know you even gave it to him, Stark, huh? How do I know? For all I know, you didn't. Wouldn't put it past you, asshole, either!" Fury is incensed, more angry than usual, and his fist slams down on the table. The man in the corner with all the scraggly black hair winces and Tony notices the green hint that briefly invades his fingertips.

"I gave it to him, he's just - listen, he's on his way, he's -"

"God. I ask for Iron Man and I get _you._ How the fuck is that a fair exchange?" Fury asks the air, his eye raised to the roof. "Stark. Go away and don't fucking come back until you have Iron Man."

Tony looks around the room, at the people he's meant to work with. At Natalie - _Natasha,_ who meets his gaze unwaveringly, at Banner, who is staring at his hands, at Thor, who looks at him as if he were a mouse, at Captain Rogers, who looks at him with such disgust that the Tony underneath the _Tony Stark_ quails and quavers and bursts into tears. "Fine," he snaps with as much dignity as he can muster. "I'll just go call him up, shall I? You got anything to dump me at the Tower with?"

"Get yourself to the Tower," Fury harrumphs, lip curling. "Get outta my sight, Stark."

Tony walks with dignity, hyper-aware of every eye on him as he strolls out of the control room. He fingers the phone in his pocket; Rhodey is two on speed dial, just after Pepper. He's gonna call Rhodey. He's gonna find a bathroom, find his Iron Man case, change and get the hell out of this place. Pull out of the Initiative as soon as he's saved the world, because he can't do this.

Can't.

The first abandoned corridor he comes to, Tony leans against the wall and pulls out his phone. Thumbs the second key. Waits while the phone rings three times-

 _"Tony?"_

"Thank God, Rhodey," Tony sighs in relief, pinching the bridge of his nose. "This was such a bad idea."

 _"A secret fuckin' identity was a bad idea, Tony. This is just adding insult to injury, and don't you know it."_

"No, man, I mean Captain-star-spangled-America is here."

A pause. _"Ah."_

"I can't do this, man, I really can't, I can't do this and he keeps looking at me and talking about my _dad_ and talking and I can't and I can't, Rhodey, Rhodey, I can't-"

 _"Tony. Tony. Tony. Okay, man, so what you're gonna do is breathe. And relax. Breathe in. Breathe out. You're okay. You're fine."_

Tony breathes in. Tony breathes out. "I'm okay. I'm fine."

If he thinks optimistically, he can't even hear the wobble in his voice.

XxXxX

"You're friends with Howard Stark's son, huh?" Captain Rogers is on to him as soon as Tony walks into the room, clanking in his suit, face covered by the gold plate.

"Yeah." The electronic speakers distort his voice, make it unrecognisable. Tony, thank God, relaxes. "Yeah, I am."

Captain Rogers' face darkens. "He needs to learn some respect. He's the Howard Stark of this generation?"

"Better than," says Banner from the corner, looking up for the first time. "Stark Industries is three times as successful as it was when Howard was the director, you know."

"He's the Howard Stark, I guess," says Tony.

The redhead just _watches._ It's disconcerting.

Rogers glares. "He's a poor replacement for a much better man."

And that, unfortunately, seems to be that.

"Suit up, Avengers," Fury says solemnly. "Things are about to get real hairy real fast."

XxXxX

"Come on, come on, you lot should live it with me. I have a hell of a lot of floors and Iron Man is already there, so you'll have company," Tony says, hiding the eagerness as best he can. "Come on, it'll be cool."

Barton scoffs. "Living with _you?_ Hell, no, Stark. I'd rather die."

"That can be arranged," Banner says mildly.

"Seriously. Call me up sometime, okay?" Tony asks, and leaves it at that.

He knows it's not his presence that draws them, one by one, to live in the Tower.

It's Iron Man and SHIELD and pressure from Fury.

Everyone trusts Iron Man.

He's a good person.

XxXxX

 **A.N. Damn. I just love identity porn and 5 + 1 stories, so here's a marvellous cocktail. This isn't one of the five; this is the setting-up-of-stuff, so expect the first chapter sometime soon. Reviews are always appreciated!**


	2. Barton

**1\. Barton**

Tony curses as he trips out of the workshop, the call to Assemble blaring in his ears. He hasn't slept in - two? Two? Maybe three - days, and he hasn't eaten in as many, and God only knows all the things that could go wrong with the suit as it is. This is going to backfire miserably, he knows it.

 _"Iron Man. Iron Man. Iron Man, report to roof. Iron Man."_

"Iron Man reporting," Tony says, shoving down the faceplate and allowing the electronics to distort his voice, make it unrecognisable. "Iron Man comin' on in, just got held up a little by Stark."

" _Fuck that guy,"_ Barton huffs down the line, and Tony hears clicking and scraping on the other end. " _Seriously, does he_ _ **ever**_ _think of the people dying right now while he's busy being a - what the hell - genius, playboy, billionaire bastard?"_

"He's kinda a douche," Tony agrees, not even paying attention much anymore. Ignoring the twist in his gut. In the months since the Avengers have taken up sanction in what is officially Avengers Tower, and in the months since Tony has completely failed to tell anyone about anything, the one person they turn to bashing over the comms has been him. (Not him-Iron-Man, him-Tony-Stark.) He can see why, of course; he's kind of a horrible person. But it will make this whole thing so much more awkward if any of them, God forbid, ever find out.

" _Hah. Tell me 'bout it."_ That's Rogers, a man Tony still can't look at without accompanying _memories._

 _"Iron Man, report status. Where are you?"_ Romanoff, businesslike and brisk.

Tony heads for the main window on his floor, throwing himself out and kicking up the jet propulsion action in his boots and gauntlets. "Comin' right for you, Widow. Be there in a second."

It's less when he touches down elegantly on the roof, landing next to Barton and concealing his stagger with ease. He doesn't think anyone's noticed; they're all busy with last-minute safety checks, patting down their armour, searching for any flaws that could lead to the mission going completely wrong. It's sort of a stab in the gut to Tony; who knows how many hours he spend just last night on Roger's reinforced chestpiece; but he understands the need to check for himself.

"You got away, huh?" Banner says, raising his eyebrows and folding his arms. Banner is the one who dislikes Iron Man, to Tony's surprise - Banner is the one who knows Tony. _Tony_ Tony. The one without the mask.

"Stark's a distractable guy, whaddaya know?" Tony holds up his hands, revelling once more in his own fine motor engineering. He can convey _emotion._ Even if he's not a good human, he's a damn good engineer. And that almost makes up for the, y'know, the shitty human part.

"Quit talking about Stark." Barton pulls on the empty string of his bow, the sound ringing out. "Jesus, every time we get together, we talk about that guy. I am sick of it. Cap, rundown?"

"Right. Doctor Doom. Fantastic Four are off in the Artic, so it's up to us to stop this guy. He's made more Doombots, what do you know, and - Iron Man, have you got the scrambler?" Rogers finishes his brief statement, looking up to the now-hovering Tony with a friendly smile.

"Gotcha, Captain," Tony replies, waving the control panel on his right hand, waggling the fingers, taking another moment to _wow_ at his own suit. "Right here, new and improved courtesy of Stark."

"Glad to see he has some things prioritised," Rogers nods, brusque but pleased. "Suit up, let's go. Iron Man, take West flank, take Hawkeye. Banner-"

"Working on it," the biologist says tersely, and Tony notices the green creeping up his neck like a horrific blush.

"Banner, you can take Widow. I'll get the bike and we'll have this cleaned up in time for tea," Rogers concludes, looking pleased with himself. "Got all that?"

"Got it," comes the chorus.

Tony sticks his thumbs up.

"I'm stuck with you, then, Tin Can Man," Barton says childishly, sidling up to Tony with his bow held loosely and confidently in his hands. He smiles, twangs the bowstring once more, offers his hand out for Tony to take in his arms. "Hey," Barton adds as Tony tests the changed weight and gravity on the boosters, "hey, you going to be around for food? We're ordering takeout."

"Can't eat with the faceplate down," Tony replies distractedly. JARVIS can do most of the calculations automatically, but Tony still has to do some manual work to allow for the archer's weight; as Tony lowers them both off the roof, he grows more confident that he can handle it, speeding up and flanking Cap on the West side.

Barton rolls his eyes, seeming unperturbed at how totally helpless he is, carried in Tony's arms like a baby. He _trusts_ Iron Man in a way he would never trust Tony. "Oh, come on, Iron Man. I've known you for three months, you're one of my closest friends, I dunno your name and I never seen your face. I don't got your knowing." His grammar slips, Tony notes with amusement, when he's comfortable. He falls into the old dialect he used to know.

"I'm under a tight contract for Stark," Tony replies, then decides this conversation is over. He doesn't think he can take many more people insulting him, not when he's this exhausted.

"Stark can-"

"Shut it, Barton, some people have flying to do. And you're no lightweight," Tony adds at the end as a joke.

Barton accepts, slapping the metal casing on Tony's upper arm with a familiarity that Tony aches to have all the time, devoid of armour.

Too bad the world has already decided what it thinks about Tony Stark, Barton included. Tony has to be content with his lot, happy to know that even if Barton will never like Tony, the world has cast its vote more favourably on Iron Man.

XxXxX

" _Iron Man!"_

Tony turns in mid-air, his palm outstretched, the missiles out and zoning in on the 'bot that had been behind him. "Thanks, Hawkeye," he says roughly, dodging the bot with more than usual difficulty. The exhaustion is beginning to take its toll, black spots appearing in his vision when he turns, and the gnawing in his stomach and itchiness in his throat tells him he needs to get food, like, _yesterday._

 _"Anything, dude."_ Hawkeye is perched on top of the building around which the bots are swarming, and every so often one will seem to blow up on it's own, closely followed by Barton's screech of delight.

Tony stops in the air for a moment, blocking the main comm line for three seconds. "JARVIS, can I keep going?"

The disapproval is clear in the AI's voice. _"It would be inadvisable, sir, but needs must."_

"Okay," Tony says, and opens the main comm link again.

 _"Iron Man! Doom, directly behind you!"_ Romanoff, sounding urgent.

"Shit," Tony curses, spinning in mid-air. Darkness crowds in at the corners of his vision; he needs to stay awake, needs to do it urgently, needs to.

"Iron Man! The lackey of Stark and his evil machines!" Doom crows, floating and looking vaguely menacing, surrounded by humming bots.

"Lackey," Tony says contemptuously, arming the missiles in his shoulders, keeping them hidden. "Y'know, Doom, I read somewhere where being a mad dude doesn't stop you from talking like this is the twenty-first century. I mean, c'mon, iPhones exist and you're calling me a lackey?"

"Lackey," Doom repeats, and god _damn_ he just looks so ridiculous in that swirling black coat that Tony lets out an insane giggle born of hysteria and, like, being awake for seventy-two hours solid or something ridiculous like that.

"I'm sorry," Tony gasps, aware of Barton laughing in his ear, "But... Doom, have you actually _seen_ yourself in that coat? Trust me, it's not - aha - not pretty. You look like, you know, whenever you're in the house on your own and you tie a blanket around your neck-"

"You are delirious," Doom hisses, raising his arms imperiously, "Bots!"

Aw, fuck. If Tony wasn't so busy suddenly dodging his own death, he would have time to laugh about the ridiculous plight he was in; swarmed by what are basically tiny black CDs with _Doom_ written on them in swirling white paint and with a minor hive AI mind.

" _Iron Man, scrambler. Repeat, Iron Man, use your damn scrambler,"_ Rogers.

Okay. Tony. Get your head in the game here, or it won't just be you dead, but Doom going batshit on the whole city all at once. "Right on it, Captain," he wheezes, and presses the manual button on the inside of his right wrist. If he's broken down the latest bot model correctly, they should all cut out at once, destroying Doom's new stock in one fell swoop.

"Aha!" Doom shrieks.

O...kay. Not good. Anything that makes Doom happy is a _bad_ idea.

"Did you use the scrambling device your billionaire made for you, Iron Man?"

Tony's heart sinks to his boots. None of the bots are failing. Why? Why does everything he make not _work?_ Is it some sort of divine revenge for Tony being a shithead most of his life? "Doom," he says, voice low and dangerous, blinking away the creeping unconsciousness, "Doom, what did you do?"

"Stark is not the only one with considerable engineering prowess," is all Doom seems to come forth with.

 _"Iron Man!"  
_

 _"Hawk-"_

 _"The building!"_

 _"The 'scraper!"_

 _"They're headed for the damned building!"  
_

 _"Clint, get your ass down right now-"_

The cacophony of voices is louder to Tony's tired mind, and he has no time to even think as he sees the mass of swirling black dots abandon their destruction as one fluid entity and head for the centre of the block Barton is perched on top of. On top of the block that Barton can't hope to get down from in time.

"How will you cope without your sniper?" Shrieks Doom, and okay, Tony has had it up to _here_ with that guy and then some.

No time.

No time for thinking.

No time for anything except panic.

"Barton, you motherfucker, don't you dare!" Tony screeches over the comms, and pushes down on the pressure plates in his boots, driving him as fast as he can force this suit to go toward the building. He can hear the babble over the comm, the sniper's panic and fear and terror manifesting itself as random syllables and words and snatches of phrases. The purple dot begins to fall with the building as the bots collide; Tony watches in horror; bricks fall-

 _"Iron Man, stop-"_

 _"Let him go, Cap, he-"_

 _"Smash!"_

Tony calculates at the speed of light-

Swings upward at the last moment-

Catches Barton like a ragdoll, miraculously unharmed-

And has just enough sense to cover the unprotected archer's body with his own as the building falls around them.

XxXxX

"Iron Man, buddy, you can't just die, come on, I don't know your name! Iron Man! Iron Man!"

Senseless, anxious wittering greets Tony as he's jolted back to consciousness with the sinking feeling in his gut that something has gone wrong, that someone has somehow got his faceplate off and seen him for what - for who - he is. "Barton?" He wheezes, and blinks his eyes open.

They're in the dark.

Shit.

"Iron Man, I need you to talk right now," says Barton, Barton's voice from close by, Barton and focus on _that_ and not on the pressing dark and the feeling of hands pulling at shoulders and the sensation of falling and sinking and water and people, and the stench of your own half-clotted blood fresh in the air-

"Barton," Tony repeats, aware of how high and squeaky his voice has become. "Dark. We're. We're in the dark." The dark and his systems must be down because there's no JARVIS whispering reassuringly in his ear, and Tony always knew he'd die in this horrific, claustrophobic cage but he can't breathe and it's _dark_ and the smell and the sounds and the sights are everywhere, and - and - and -

"Iron Man. Iron Man. Your vision, you're... I don't know, I'm not Stark, but something's wrong with your eye-hole thingies. You need to take off your helmet. You're not in the dark. Iron Man, you with me?" Barton's voice is cool and measured, but not enough -

Take it off -

He _can't -_

Would he rather die, die like this, or live knowing that Barton _knows?_

"Iron Man, I'm really sorry, but I see the catch and I've got to take it off, you're breathing too quick, man, I'm so, so, sorry," Barton babbles. Tony feels hands at his neck, invasive, pressure on his skin, and flinches away. He can't. He can't. He thought he could and he can't. Barton will know and what Barton knows, the world knows, and for some reason even _thinking_ is making Tony's brain work too fast and too much and oh _God._

"No - don't-"

"Man, you're panicking, I'm sorry, okay, I really - "

Barton falls into silence as Tony feels the air on his face, the air, the _air,_ clean and full of concrete dust and Barton opposite him, sitting on his knees, undamaged and it's the real world, and -

And -

And Barton can _see him._

"This is all a dream," Tony tries feebly, waving his hands. "A dream. Dre-e-e-e-eam."

"Stark, you motherfucker," Clint says tightly. "You son of a bitch. You asshole. You piece of complete shit."

Tony is _so_ not going to breakdown in front of Barton. That would be wrong.

XxXxX

Clint surveys the man who's face is so raw, so free of anything else but himself, and feels something in his gut just drop out.

Stark is Iron Man.

Iron Man is Stark.

"Oh my God, this is wrong, this is bad, this is really, really, really not good, I need to - I need to fix that catch, jeez, and I need to - Barton - you-" Stark's chest is heaving underneath all that armour and his skin is pale and his eyes are wide and terrified.

Clint hasn't ever seen the man without his irritating smirk.

Clint didn't think there was anything more to him than that.

"Stark," he says, surprised at his own tone of voice. Because he's not _angry._ He's confused, and he'll be pissed later, when he gets drunk, but he's not mad. He's just confused, and - "Stark, why the hell didn't you - " Something in the back of his mind prods him nastily, and Clint's thoughts take a turn for the worse.

They've been living in the Tower for three months.

They've all hated on Stark, not holding back on the times Iron Man was present.

This morning -

"Barton, I swear, after this you will shut up but please, please just find the chest catch and get it off me, get it _off,"_ Stark practically shrieks, ignoring the whole trapped-under-a-building-until-further-notice situation. He's breathing oddly and Clint's been around too many assassins for too long. He recognises a killer of a panic attack when he sees one, like hell, and obeys without much thought.

"Thank _fuck,"_ Stark breathes when the metal falls from his upper body.

"Stark." Clint knows he's in shock, he's got to be, because this man just saved his life at the expense of his own suit and safety, this man, and Iron Man has been one of his closest friends and Clint _despises, despised_ the sight of Tony Stark simply because the man doesn't - didn't - care. "Stark. You're Iron Man."

"I'm under a building. I am under a building. I am in New York. I am in New York." Stark looks at Clint. "I'm Iron Man, 'course I'm Iron Man, I - in New York. We're in New York and we're under a building and we're fine and you're here, Barton, you're - in New York."

"New York, and it's May the nineteenth, a Friday, my name is Clint Barton, you are Anthony Stark, we have just fought Doom, the shit, and we're under a building." Clint's not going to pry, but Stark looks so terrified, so off-balance, that Clint reacts instinctively before his common sense can catch him up.

He leans forward and envelops the shaking billionaire in a hug.

Stark doesn't know how to react. His shoulders are stiff and his breath catches, but slowly he relaxes and his breathing evens and -

"I'm sorry," Clint says, and he means it. "You wanna put it back on before SHIELD get to us?"

Stark smiles. Not the smiles Clint had thought were real; this one is small and quick and heartfelt and changes Stark's entire face. "Barton, I think I love you," he says, and slumps against the ground, eyes slipping shut.

XxXxX

No one knows what happened, but all of a sudden Tony makes appearances in the Tower more often and when it's Clint's turn on lunch duty, he somehow drags the genius up and forces him to cook, and in one week they've seen more of Tony than in three months.

He and Clint even have a slappy-handshake-bro thing, as Natasha calls it with amusement.

What happened?

It doesn't disguise the fact that, for the most part, Tony is _untrustworthy._

And everyone prefers the company of Iron Man to the company of the erratic engineer.

XxXxX

 **A.N**

 **Jeez. That's long. Expect Howard Stark's A+ Parenting to come up in this too, I forget to mention, and major bro-ing of Clint and Tony because bro-ing between those two gives me strength. Reviews appreciated!**

 **(Edit - thanks to Ailec-12 for pointing out that I've been spelling Steve's surname wrong. I'm a dumbass Brit, what can I say? Thank you!)**


	3. Banner

**(Guest M - With reference to how far Tony's anonymity goes - no one knows who the real Iron Man is except Pepper, Rhodey, JARVIS - if he counts - and Obidiah, before his death. The media has a field trip with guessing who it is; main bets are on Rhodey because of War Machine and the promo stunts Tony drags him into doing. Hope this answers your question, and yeah, it'll be addressed in the fic!)**

Now that he knows, Clint can't help but find the situation alternatively the funniest thing ever or the saddest, depending on how much alcohol and sleep he's gotten recently. Tony will waltz into the kitchen on the rare times he's actually feeling social, and be met with icy silence and sideways glares - Iron Man will clank into the kitchen and be greeted with smiles, nods, waves, conversations.

Right now, Clint thinks it's kind of funny.

Seriously, though, Natasha actually said that Stark wasn't recommended and that Iron Man was totally a-okay.

It's hilarious.

"They hate you so much," he guffaws, holding his stomach, lying on the ragged mattress in the corner of Tony's workshop. "They hate you and they love you and it's so funny, man, it's so funny!"

"Tell me about it," Tony laughs, doubled over, flapping wildly to control his giggles. Clint loves Stark's laugh when he's hyped up, because Stark speeds up, his whole body starts working at triple time, and his laugh becomes three short, sharp, trilling notes, hysterical and _way_ too teenage-girl. "Oh, it's so - pass me another, dude, I am too tired for this shit."

"Wait-" Clint leans over the mattress, his hand rooting in the pile of discarded cans of Red Bull and Styrofoam coffee cups for one that isn't empty. It's difficult, because neither of them have surfaced from Tony's basement workshop for over a day and if Clint's tired, he can't even think of what Tony has to be like. The engineer hasn't slept in a few days, Clint reckons, and doesn't look like stopping any time soon. "Yo, Stark, catch."

Tony whirls around, raising his arm for the can, shaking it a few times to get all the bubbles. "Thanks, Barton."

They settle into silence, Clint playing a mindless thumb-tapping game on his phone, Tony building some sort of insane prototype for Steve's bike, throwing his tiny holographic gears into place, expanding synthetic material that JARVIS probably has cooking up in some lab somewhere else around the Tower. Steve's bike. Funny, that, how no one ever mentions all the upgrades Tony is constantly doing on their stuff. And he's doing a lot - Clint's been hanging around more and more often, and Stark's running himself harder just to do those extra things. Clint supposes it's just part of a superhero team, but he wouldn't know. He's never really been part of one of those before, so why would he have any idea what's meant to happen?

Ooh, triple-point-score.

XxXxX

Tony is working with Bruce on the new biophysics modules for Stark Industries, which is so much cooler than he expected because he gets to play with his holograms and talk to Banner at the same time, and that's basically heaven. Plus, Banner _works for him._ As in, Banner has to _stay. Indefinitely. On contract._ Tony still has a worry in the back of his mind that the doctor would pick up and leave, because apart from Barton, Bruce is the only one who definitely likes him.

Probably.

Even though he's pretty sure Banner is on the 'Iron Man' squad. (Sporting _down with Stark_ placards and banners, of course.)

Most people are, admittedly, and even Clint was until recent weeks. (Last night Tony fabricated them friendship bracelets made out of all the aluminium from the cans of energy drink they'd consumed, and finished the final bracelet about thirty seconds before falling forward, passing out on Clint's comatose frame. It's nice. Clint is surprisingly protective, and violently laid-back.)

But whatever. Friendship bracelets totally _rock._ They are badass and hardcore and all things cool, okay? Tony shakes his down his arm a little, shivers at the tickle it scratches down his wrist, laughs at himself.

Sleep is so awesome. He wants to do that more often, if this is what it feels like to have enough.

"Tony," Banner says amusedly, "Tony, can you throw me up a breakdown of the electrostatic charge in sodium nitrate? I want to try something."

"Sure thing." Tony pinches the holographic ion he was working on, miniaturises it and throws the tiny ball at Banner, who catches it with a grin. "Man, my tech is just _too cool_ for me to even begin to talk about how cool it is. Am I right?"

"Very cool," Banner says, blowing up the image and plucking out one of the electrons, humming to himself. "Periodic table, table, table," he says as he searches the source folders.

Tony smiles to himself when he sees the ease at which the doctor works, nowadays; when Banner first moved into the Tower, taking up hesitant residence in the biochem lab, he sort of poked at the blue images until JARVIS called Tony up to give the technologically-challenged man a hand, and even then Bruce would have preferred paper.

 _So_ twentieth-century.

Tony himself picks up a screwdriver, his smallest one, and fumbles around on the tabletop for the knuckle motors in the right hand of the Iron Man suit. Last mission - well, just say he needs _way_ more dexterity in his hands than he once thought, and that one slip-up was a near fatal mistake for three people.

He's berating himself inside his head as he prises out the engineering, the tiny little circuits wrapped in a thin layer of foam to protect them. He could have been responsible for three deaths, stopped if he'd just work a little. Damn laziness, what it is.

"JARVIS?" He asks, raising his eyes out of habit, just like the rest of them do, "Can you play... uh, y'know, just play the Iron Man playlist, yeah? That should do. Tone it low, though." He doesn't want to annoy Banner too much; weird sounds in your lab is the _worst feeling._ Ever. _Ever._

Banner is okay. Yeah, Banner is okay.

"Tony, what are you doing?" Bruce asks eventually, and Tony realises that he's been twirling the screwdriver into the workbench, creating a small, deep hole in his wood.

"Huh?" He says, turning guiltily, even though he hasn't actually been caught doing anything wrong, so technically -

Worry creases at Banner's temples. It's strange. "You've been screwing into the table for the last half hour. Are you okay?"

Tony looks from the hole in the table to his own hands and then the Iron Man gauntlet. "I guess I got distracted," he shrugs uneasily. "I gotta fix the motor dexterity in the knuckles, see?"

"Why?" Banner tosses his current hologram back to his place so he's fully focused on Tony, a habit Tony is guessing the doctor picked up from India, dealing with shy, terrified patients. It's disconcerting.

"It's not good enough, see?" Tony holds up the circuit board balanced in his palm even though he knows Bruce can't possibly see it.

Bruce raises one eyebrow and rubs his glasses on the collar of his lab coat. "Iron Man can move perfectly well in his suit. It's amazing, how much it allows for body language, really, especially the fine motoring. Nothing wrong with it."

"Iron Man was trying to lift that girder last week, and he told me the gauntlets were too, like, bulky. Too unwieldy. Didn't bend right. Three people almost died because the suit wasn't working, so I gotta fix them," Tony sighs and looks at his workbench again, briefly mourning the otherwise smooth, lacquered wood. He takes _pride_ in his working environment furniture.

" _What-"_

"Coffee!" Tony exclaims, pushing aside the concerned-parent lecture he's pretty sure is on the tip of Banner's tongue. He's heard it all before anyway, from Pepper and Rhodey, although never actually from concerned parents.

Okay, coffee. Tony is not here for moping in self-loathing.

XxXxX

"They're invading my _Tower?"_

"Tony, get out of the way. You're not needed."

"There are aliens in my fucking hot tub, I am needed-"

"Can you fight? Can you handle weapons? You're useless in this situation," Romanoff says sharply, her eyes looking past him.

Tony bites back a reminder about how he can _fight,_ thanks, for God's sakes, he's a multi-billionaire and he's an Avenger, and he's been kidnapped too many times to even count anymore. He can hold his own and his upper-body strength is _awesome._ And his left hooks are also _awesome._ "Whatever," he says anyway, fully intending to disobey her. "I'm going to go and hide, totally-"

"Stay here, Stark-"

"No fucking way, Natalie," Tony bites, ducking under her arm with JARVIS causally informing the Tower about the demonic squid-alien-things that have landed on his roof. His actual roof. Not only is that a privacy invasion, it's also really embarrassing for everyone involved. (Him.) He barrels down the corridor and into the elevator, because he can _totally_ get to the armour before anyone notices that Iron Man is missing in action. He doesn't think he can take Rogers' disappointed face aimed at both incarnations of Tony Stark. That would suck.

"JARVIS, get the latest suit that's workable into action. How are the joints holding up?"

"Fabrication is not complete-"

"Get it, Jarv, please." Tony keeps the note of pleading well away from his voice, tearing down the hallway to the storeroom of suits secured away from the rest of the Tower. No one needs to see them, right? Nope. Nope. Clint has the passcode, but it's overrun, and Tony needs to get these fucking aliens off his roof before he has a heart attack.

Again.

"Fabrication is not complete, sir," JARVIS says, and damn, did Tony really program in that biting sarcasm? "All other suits are non-functional. Do you want to endanger your team?"

This _robot._ Ruthless. Taking advantage of him. Asshole.

"Boot up the most recently modified suit," Tony says through gritted teeth. He'll be damned if some AI is going to manipulate him with such transparency. And the new suit will be fine, save for the sputtering propulsion packs in his heels, but he'll have to make do. Didn't he fight his way out of a highly guarded terrorist mole-hole with a car battery and a few scraps?

Aliens. On _his_ roof.

They've stepped over the line.

He's glad at least he's had time to fix the magnetic connectors, because he doesn't have time to click in all the latches around his wrists and ankles and two dozen other places besides. The faceplate is the last to go down and Tony _feels_ himself relax, a tiny part of him lost, a tiny part of Iron Man gained.

Iron Man is a better man than Tony Stark.

He opens the main comms channel just in time. "Iron Man signing in. Repea-"

 _"Iron Man, thank God, get up here before Stark has seven canaries,"_ Rogers says tersely. _"Things - aliens - on the roof. Big teeth. Green. Pulsing a little. Get up here."_

"Got that," Tony replies, opening the link to JARVIS. "Hey, how are the stabilizers?"

"No matter what I say, sir, you will endeavour to somehow work their weaknesses into injuring yourself. The stabilizers are working overtime on battery. I estimate thirty minutes, perhaps less, before the propulsion packs begin to fail and counteract the stabilizers."

"Right." Tony thinks aloud, clanking awkwardly to the nearest open window. "Okay. Cap, how many aliens? Estimate?"

 _"Over a dozen,"_ comes Clint's voice, surprisingly. _"Get your tin can ass out here now, Iron Man, situation critical."_

"Coming," Tony mutters, and throws himself out the window.

Ooh, bad idea. _Bad, bad_ idea. His flight stops and starts and he falls alarmingly, struggling to gain control once more, his balance completely thrown. JARVIS is speaking in his ear, the uppity motherfucker, but Tony has stopped listening.

Such a bad idea.

 _"Iron Man!"_ Clint squeals down the the comm line. _"Get up here, now!"_

"Coming, Birdbrain," Tony mumbles, landing on the roof and managing not to wobble all that much. He _really_ needs to work on fixing his suits and fixing himself - he can't keep coming into fights with either one or the other not working properly.

Unfortunately, there isn't much time to mope; the roof is swarming with armoured, green _things._ Two legs, clawed, unarmed - but who would give these things weapons when their claws extend twelve inches? - and hissing, spitting corrosive phlegm at whatever moves. Tony spies Clint perched precariously on the 'A' of the sign, which sticks up higher than the roof. The archer is firing arrows - exploding ones, netted ones, barbed ones, splitting ones, harpoon ones - but only a few actually seem to make a difference.

All this passes through Tony's mind in a second.

He'll be more useful in the air.

"Sir, the stabilizers-"

"Boost 'em. Two-hundred-percent."

"Sir, that will drain the-"

"Well, I'd just better do this quick, right?"

Tony hovers just above head height, preparing the miniature arms factory on his gauntlet to shoot, just as the Captain sends out the order for Banner to Hulk out.

 _"_ This isn't working right," Rogers says urgently. "Banner, I need you to-"

Tony focuses in on Bruce, concerned despite himself for his lab partner. The biologist, who is half-hidden behind Thor's impressive swinging hammer, winces as the order is given but nods, his fists bunching by his sides and the strangely fascinating green colour almost immediately overwhelming his whole body. His shirt tears. It gives Tony a thrill of happiness to see Bruce wearing the elasticated pants he made, the stretchy ones that mean no embarrassing naked-Hulk issues occur.

"Iron Man, take the three over by the grille there," instructs Widow, her body a blur as she spins a delicate knife hilt-deep into an alien skull. It squelches.

"On it," Tony tells them, leaning forward, aiming to trap the three formidable aliens in the corner where he has the upper hand. "JARVIS, fire - uh, fire Red Bullet." A red capsule detaches from his gauntlet with a hissing noise, landing among the three. They immediately scatter; the bomb explodes without any effect at all.

"Shit," Tony curses. He feels the air falling from beneath him for a moment; hands flying out to compensate. The roar of the Hulk seems to fill the air, the chitter-chatter and the hiss and the spit of the alien things just filling in the gaps. One of his three spits, the fluid flying to land on the tiny seam between his anklet and his boot.

The aliens chitter-chatter; laughter at what his reaction is sure to be.

Tony only just stops himself from yelling aloud.

His flesh _burns._ It's worse than any acid he's accidentally spilled on himself, and he can _feel_ it eating into his skin, worming its way in -

Something in the boot fizzles.

Tony feels his suit judder -

Feels it fall -

Has just enough time to panic and let out a shout of pain before a huge, green hand is underneath him and a huge, green foot sweeps the three aliens to the ground. That same green foot stamps hard on the pile of feebly squirming alien bodies, which squelch. And ooze. Brains everywhere, style of thing. Very badass, but also very tempting for Tony to want to bring up his lunch inside his helmet. Nope.

He feels himself rising.

Tony faces a pair of disconcertingly human brown eyes.

"Science coffee man good?" The Hulk grunts.

Tony can only shove his thumbs up, and wonder where the hell Iron Man got that nickname from.

XxXxX

As it turns out, alien acid gives him a killer burn and renders his ankle a tiny ball of pain every time he puts pressure on it, and alien acid is a really good motive for him to finally fix up the suit. Tony works on it for thirty-six hours solid, remembers he totally had that biophysics module to fix out with Bruce - who is officially as awesome as Tony - and, groaning, he limps his way up to the biology labs.

Bruce is deep in the project, but he looks up and smiles happily when Tony walks in, trying to walk as normally as possible without actually damaging something.

"Hi," says the scientist mildly. "I thought you'd forgotten."

"Iron Man had some serious complaints with the suit. I had to fix it real quick," Tony explains, making his laborious way over to his usual workstation.

"The knuckle motors?"

"Propulsion packs in the boots, the flying bits. They were all over the place. Almost cost him the fight if it wasn't for the Other Guy," Tony adds the last bit on impulse, attaching a winning grin.

Bruce smiles again, absent-mindedly. "Oh, yes. I meant to talk to you about that, you know, Tony."

The thing, Tony thinks, about Bruce, is this. Bruce is a doctor. He has an official certificate. He's worked for years in the slums in India. He's not as silly, as bumbling, as absent-minded as he likes to project; Bruce hides his razor-sharp observation and intelligence behind an affable, apologetic, likeable persona. He's making up for the Hulk, Tony gets that, but it's easy to see only the outer layer.

"Ask me about it?"

Yes." Bruce drops his stylus and walks around to the middle of the lab, nothing separating him and Tony. "Two things, actually."

"Two things?" Why can't Tony do anything but parrot Bruce's sentences back like a demented parrot?

"Yes. One: during the battle, the Hulk referred to Iron Man as 'science coffee man'. Do you want to tell me exactly why he called you the same thing a few weeks ago in that SHIELD incident?" Bruce has his hands on his hips, eyebrows narrowed.

"Uh-"

"And two: you're limping. Favouring your left foot. Iron Man was hit in the right ankle by that acid-spit the aliens gobbed at him." Bruce glares. "Well? Tony?"

Tony sighs. He's got no explanation to talk his way out of this anymore. And hey, what's the worst that can happen, telling Bruce? "Sorry."

The doctor's shoulders loosen; his mouth twists into a sad smile. "Oh, _Tony,"_ he says affectionately, and for the second time in as many weeks Tony finds himself in a completely unexpected embrace from a team member he'd bet money on hating on him.

"Thanks," he mumbles into Bruce's shoulder.

Bruce squeezes even harder.

 **A.N**

 **Thank you for the reviews! I'm hoping none of that was too OOC, as that's a really bad habit of mine. Thank you so much for all the reviews, they make my day!**


	4. Romanoff

**3\. Romanoff**

Where Barton was just kind of okay with it, Bruce is different. Bruce wants to know who and where and how and _when,_ Tony, _how and when_ did you do it without anyone knowing? _Why the hell_ would one of the world's biggest show-offs hide something like this?

Tony sort of really, really doesn't want to go into that story, but Bruce is different to Clint. Clint just leaves it where he finds it, Clint accepts that there are some areas to skip around - he's a spy, he has his own set of triggers - but Bruce has this way of blinking over his glasses, kind and soft and so gentle that Tony doesn't realise he's being pressurised, _manipulated,_ until he's halfway through the story, and even then it's too late to back out and he thinks he might, maybe, like, cry all over the Hulk's shoulder.

Okay, Tony, that's just sad.

He presses his lips together instead, banging out a soft rhythm on Dummy's chestplate - open, fixing the hardware - instead of making eye contact with the doctor.

"So, there was this car battery or something in my chest, which really _sucks_ for waterboarding, like, totally. Really damn painful, you feel, being drowned and electrocuted at the same time-" He breaks off as he hears a faint bang in the walls above. "Clint, I know you're in the vents, okay?" He appreciates the spy, but this is one of his more annoying habits. Traits. Apparently he does it in S.H.I.E.L.D too, which isn't reassuring.

Moments later, the archer's head appears in the duct. "Sorry?" He offers, swinging the rest of him into the lab. Bruce scowls. "Please," Clint nods, "continue. I'm deaf anyway, can't hear a word you say." Liar. He has his aids on.

Tony sighs. "Whatever. Long story short, I built the suit and got the hell out of there and someone really amazing died trying to get me out and I managed to only let three people know, and one of 'em's dead. And now you guys, 'cause apparently I'm way worse at keeping secrets than I thought."

Clint leaps up, clinging sloth-like to the copper piping trailing along the roof for that very purpose. Tony is _observant._ "You kinda are," the archer observes mischievously.

Tony clutches at his chest, mock-scowling up at Clint, barely fending off a grin, the serious atmosphere evaporating. "You wound me, you know. Really. It strikes deep."

"Sorry to hear that, Tin Can Man," Clint says, then giggles. "Man, that is the best thing ever. _Tin Can Man._ I'm just kinda mad there isn't a metal I can rhyme 'ass' with."

"Much as I enjoy hearing two of the deadliest men in the world flirt, I'm kind of blurry on why Clint is here," Bruce says mildly, looking up at the archer with a knowing smile. "Last I checked, you were with Natasha-"

Tony gets there before him. "Hawkeybaby pissed off Spidergirl!" He crows, clapping his hands together, almost dislodging an uncapped bottle of unlabelled green _stuff_ from the workbench. "Oh, man, Clint, what did you do? Quick, get back in the vents, and forget the last five minutes ever happened. If we have a Stark pity-party there needs to be more stuff to drink that won't kill us."

"Alcohol will kill you, Iron Butt," Clint says childishly, backing up the wall.

"Iron Butt." Bruce repeats it derisively. _"Iron Butt."_

Clint disappears into the wall. "Better than Hawkeybaby!" Tony hears the call, muffled by the metal and Clint misjudging how close he is from the lab.

As Bruce, _Bruce Banner,_ dissolves into fits of strangely adorable giggles, clutching the end of the bench, and the laughter is echoed by an incredibly dangerous assassin from inside the walls, Tony allows himself to laugh a little as well. Not only has he let the other two _forget_ the sob story of his life, but they _like_ him. It's a strange feeling, being genuinely liked by people he hasn't known for years.

And Tony likes it.

XxXxX

"Pepper, Pepper, Miss Potts, _Pep-"_ Tony, trying out various methods of cajoling, walks into the kitchen for his midnight cup of coffee, only to find everyone currently inhabiting his tower lounging around the room, talking and relaxing. The TV is on and playing the news, which the Captain and Bruce are watching, and the archer is playing tip-tap-toe with Romanoff. _Like a three year old._ The buzz stops as soon as they see him.

 _"Tony, I can't cancel your meeting. See you at three. Wear something nice,"_ Pepper signs off, sighing.

Tony's too busy staring at them all to respond. Since when have any of the Avengers favoured staying up this late? It's got to be at least midnight, right? Rogers sleeps like clockwork, Banner seems to be catching up on years of irregular hours, the spies sleep with a timing that scares him a little, and Thor's away. "What are you doing up?"

"Uh... eating? Y'know, like normal humans?" Clint says, grinning lazily.

Tony waves his hand. "But - it's like, night-"

"It's ten in the morning," Bruce says, sounding concerned. "Were you up _all night_ again?"

"That shit's not good for you, dude," Clint chips in. He waves his plate. "Egg?"

Tony wants to back out of the kitchen, use some other coffee-making facility, but the shock of losing _ten whole hours_ in his workshop makes him disorientated. Huh. And he thought he was getting better at doing that - apparently not. Added to that, he can feel the stares of Romanoff and of Rogers, curious and hardened against him, wondering when _their_ archer and _their_ scientist got so buddy with the billionaire that doesn't really have a place on the team. Iron Man, sure, but not his funding, founding father.

"Don't run away, dude," Clint is up and shovelling crispy eggs on to a plate before Tony can escape.

"We need to set you an alarm. Programme Dummy to poke you when you've spent more than two days in there," Bruce smiles. "How's Pepper?"

Tony shrugs, aware of the thick tension in the air as Clint shoves him to sit between the archer and the physicist. "Tried to get out of-"

"The meeting this afternoon. _Again?_ You gotta get those phones to your guys before they hang and draw and quarter you, dude." The conversation is forced and unbearably awkward and Tony, trapped by friends and social convention and the surprisingly delicious eggs, has to sit through another painful fifteen minutes during which Romanoff and the Captain do nothing but stare.

Oh, dear _lord._

"I got stuff. Which I gotta do. In my workshop. Gotta go. Hawkeybaby, bring me my coffee," Tony tacks on that last bit just because he _can_ and because _god_ these people and their penetrating glares and _man,_ Tony can practically feel the morality oozing from the Captain's pores.

Like treacle.

Morality treacle.

Well, lesson learned. Don't try bond with them. They don't want to hear it.

At night, Tony tells himself he doesn't care. He presses his face into Pepper's bare shoulder and says it over and over, that _hedoesntcarehedoesntcare_ but he does and that makes it all the worse, the caring, somehow.

XxXxX

Black Widow has a cut all along her cheek. Somehow that's what sticks out, the cheek, among the rest of the blood. One stark red line, sharp against pale skin.

" _And_ I'm on my goddamned period. Motherfucking terrorists have no consideration about these sorts of things," she shrieks, uncharacteristically emotional, completely ignoring Tony - Iron Man - in the corner, who is prodding the electrical force field holding them in the cell, hissing as his suit tells him the cell is charged with 40,000 volts. Enough to -

Tonyburgers. And Natashaburgers. All burger-ed up and served to a terrorist.

Tired and hurt, the image entertains him more than it should. He's _sick_ of being kidnapped. It underestimates his skill.

"For what it's worth," Natasha says eventually, the silence reigning as they nurse their respective - minor - wounds, "I reckon we can probably take whatever they're going to do to us. Even if they take your suit off."

"They can't," Tony shakes his head, feels the reassuring weight of the faceplate against his skull. After Clint removed it with ease, he _worked_ on making sure no one could manipulate him. That no one could get his suit off. It's his last fallback. "Only I can get off the suit."

"Lucky bastard," says the assassin, but without malice. She sits in the corner, legs crossed, the picture of serenity amid the chaos. Blood runs from the long, shallow cut; she doesn't wipe it away. Her eyes are focused on something in the middle distance - her calm freaks him out. Tony is already fighting back the quick breathing that comes before logical thought in these types of incidents.

"What are you doing?" Tony asks, trying keeping away the inevitable panic, leaning against a wall. The knee of his right leg is dented, the metal sticking into his actual leg, scraping a painful surface cut. It's bleeding bad, warm liquid running down his leg and dripping into his boot.

"Not freaking out," replies Natasha, and that's that.

Lucky for her.

She can.

It started with a normal mission gone wrong; Tony had gone at the speed of sound to rescue the Widow only to realise too late that she was being used, both as bait and as a distraction and because this particular terrorist agency wanted her dead and his tech. Why does no one want him for his badass fighting skills? He has _awesome_ aim. And he's pretty witty when under pressure, too.

Ah, fun.

And now here they are - Black Widow and Iron Man, languishing in a cell. Pathetic. Fun times.

He sits and he waits and he pushes the idea to get out from his head, because that would involve _telling people_ and _people_ in this case is Natasha, and he can't do that to any more of them.

He sits and he waits until they come and there's no more waiting anymore.

XxXxX

"You're going to give us that suit and a one-way hotline to Stark. Tell him to come, unarmed, unaccompanied, and he'll get you two back." The man that has come to threaten them is flanked by two guards, both of whom look impassive. The one on the right looks at Natasha, gaze askance at her serenity.

Tony replies with an equally passive-aggressive position. "Oh, _fuck_ no. Firstly, I'm not giving you this thing, and nothing you do to me is gonna do that. Secondly, Stark has a bunch of these things. What makes you think I'm the only Iron Man? I'm expendable. Forgive me if that doesn't fill you with happiness."

Natasha's head flies up. Tony feels guilty for lying, but only for a second.

The man raises an eyebrow. "You posed as Emma when I met you," he says, directed at the spy. "I fell in love with you."

"Oh, _fuck_ no," Tony repeats, groaning dramatically and slapping his faceplate. Trust these evil gangster types and their hormones. Or pheromones. Or - whatever, biology has never been his forte.

"Sorry, _Monsieur Mastre,"_ Natasha smirks, looking evilly up at him from her legs-crossed pose. "I'm afraid that's a risk of the job. Emma Faust was not a real woman, and the love you had for an innocent child was, frankly, verging on paedophilia. Did you know," she looks at Iron Man, smiling - _play along - "_ did you know that when Mastre here was my target, I was posing as a twenty year old? He was... oh, must have been fifty."

They have him wound up to a core. Tony buzzes on euphoria - he won't have to use his plan, and no one will be tortured, and SHIELD will come and save the day and they'll all go home for tea.

Mastre's face screws up - he spits on the concrete floor. "You won't give me your tech, you won't give me your boss, and Emma won't give me her body, so-"

"Fuck you," Tony mumbles. "I am too tired for this shit. Jesus. You don't think Nat and I couldn't twist your head off your neck?"

"Handcuffs. Electric tasers. Suit made of metal, how well does that conduct?" Mastre asks, lip curling.

Tony doesn't answer. He can't. "You know I'm not gonna tell you shit, no matter how many volts you push through."

Mastre's reply is to punch the grimy keypad, march in and grab Natasha's shoulder. She kicks _up -_ Tony arms himself, but she shakes her head minutely. He recognises it for what it is - _let him. This guy is all bluff. Let him knock me around, scout out._

He hopes to God she's judged Mastre right, because Tony has enough death to atone for without Natasha's. She doesn't deserve that.

He lets her be marched away with a sinking feeling in his bones that has nothing to do with the blood pooling in his left boot. Just dread. Dread and fear and exhaustion and a wish for it to end, somehow, to go back, to stop Natasha leaving.

Tony hates being kidnapped.

XxXxX

She was _wrong._

She was _wrong._

She doesn't even come to for an hour.

Tony freaks the fuck out, freaks out with Mastre laughing at him from the other side of the force field, and then slaps himself in the face. Mentally. With Thor's hammer. He can't indulge _himself_ doing this when Nat is _bleeding out on the floor_ and oh _God -_

"Iron Man?" Natasha says blearily. "I'm on my period. This sucks so much ass. Oh, and my whole face is probably broken. But mostly my period."

Tony manages to chuckle, horrified at the messed purple _bruise_ of her face. Everything looks like it hurts, not just her _face._ "Oh. Yeah, that sucks."

"You gotta girlfriend deal with this once a month? This shit sucks," Natasha continues, all filters off through pain and sleep and -

"I'll leave you, now," Mastre says airily. As though he hasn't just beaten up the best assasin in the universe. "Iron Man. Thirty minutes to decide whether your suit is worth more than your agent. Thirty minutes, beginning _now._ See you in a while, Iron Man." Mastre and his two guards swan off, and Tony is left alone with a beaten Natasha and a less-than-favourable plan and an unbearable need to, oh, say, _not be here?_

Tony needs Clint. Tony needs for this not to be happening. "Okay. So I have an idea, but I'm gonna need your hands and I'm gonna need to-" he _has_ to - "I'm gonna need to take off my helmet, okay, and most of my suit too, get to the electronics-"

"Whaddaya need m' to do?" Natasha slurs, right as soon as Mastre leaves. "I c'n do anything."

Tony knows she's about to black out, that she can't keep going any longer. It's unfair even to ask her to. "I need you to reach into my chest and pull out my heart, yeah?"

She blinks woozily. "An' that's not normal, no."

"No," Tony agrees, and breathes in. Out. In. Out. "I'm taking off my helmet, now. So don't... don't freak."

His hair sticks to his forehead, plastered with sweat. To Natasha's everlasting credit, she seems to _store_ her surprise for later, just blinking a few times. "Huh. H'llo, Stark," she says finally, eyebrow raised. "I'll freak out about this _later._ Whaddaya need m' to do?"

His fingers fumble for the clips at his chest and he is so, so glad he built in the extra dexterity in his knuckles. He needs it. "I'm gonna take out the reactor - you'll do that - and then I'll use it to disable the force field. Hammer tech, I can beat it. Then I'll carry you out as this place explodes and I'll become a meme and everything will be totally awesome and fine."

"Yeah," agrees the assassin blearily, watching him with unusually dulled eyes. Tony knows she only has a few minutes of consciousness left. "Yeah, I c'n do that, I c'n do it."

"Good." Tony lets the chestplate fall to the floor, making a mental note to take it with him when he walks out. (No time to freak out.)

Natasha keeps watching. "What do I do?"

"See this here?" Tony taps the reactor, now bared - no time for modesty, his undershirt lies on top of his chestplate. "I need you to unscrew this, snap the red wire and hand it to me. I got a minute, maybe a minute half, before I die or whatever, so we have to do it quick."

Natasha drags herself up, supporting herself against the wall with her hand. "Can't believe Stark," she says, her slim hands making quick work of unscrewing the reactor. Tony is reminded of Obie, and - (No time to freak out.)

"Thanks," he says instead, and breathes. In. Out. In. Out. As soon as she snaps the wire, he feels it; his heart races, and he can imagine the shrapnel burrowing towards the centre of his chest, piercing his veins, killing him slowly from within. (No time to freak out.)

He kneels, places his reactor in the corner of the force field as Natasha slumps down against the wall, eyes closed and breathing shallow. His heart, his head, his mind - he _needs_ to do this, he needs to, needs to get out and go to the lab for a billion years and save the spy, who has grown on him. (Like a fungus. A mould.) (No time to freak out.)

He shoves it forward with the tip of his little finger, and watches 40,000 volts charge through his heart - (No time to freak out.)

(No time to freak out.)

XxXxX

Natasha walks out, back ramrod straight, Tony's heart screwed in and his faceplate down. They walk out to the backdrop of their impromptu hold exploding, and she stays stiff and upright until no one is watching, at which point she all but collapses on Clint.

"Stark is Iron Man. And I am not surprised," she mumbles. Tony, through the mask, sees Clint's eyes shining with moisture, and he whispers something in Russian to Natasha just before her injuries finally get the better of her and she's rushed to SHIELD medical.

Tony wishes he didn't feel guilty.

But really, most things are his fault.

He goes to his workshop the day after, and makes a pledge right then that something like that will _never_ happen to one of them again. Fuck secret identities. He doesn't need them.

XxXxX

 **A.N**

 **Sorry? Usual excuses - it deleted itself and I was ill with, like, the Plague. Awful. Thank you for showing the love, and reviews are always appreciated!**


	5. Thor

**4\. Thor**

Natasha does freak out, when she's out of SHIELD medical and back in the Tower and she yells at her pillow and at Clint and at the walls, because _how_ has she not noticed this, _how_ have SHIELD not noticed this, _how_ has one paranoid billionaire evaded the world's best secret intelligence agency? And how has she - and then _more_ realisation bubbles up, at the way the team have been treating Stark since... well, since the beginning.

"Calm down, Nat," Clint says, raising an eyebrow. It's pretty rare that Natasha will flip out about something so 'trivial' as her team's wellbeing, but she's taking this weirdly hard. " _Natasha."_

"I can't believe it!" She says, her voice cool and calm and level as it is _all the time,_ but with that very faint tremor that betrays how astonished she is. Clint knows her well.

"Okay, Nat, but here's the thing. I found out _months_ ago-"

 _"What?"_

Yeah. So, Clint probably should have told her, but what with one thing and another and Stark actually turning out to be a nice, if not worryingly insecure, kinda guy, Clint hadn't felt up to completely betraying his newest friend. But in a fight, he knows which one he'd rather have as his enemy; and right now, with Natasha's terrifying green eyes staring at him in murder mode, Clint sort of feels like he picked the _wrong one._ "Sorry. He's a nice guy! He's kinda, like, the most anxious dude I know, though, so-"

"You knew. For months. And you didn't. Tell. Me."

Clint rubs the back of his neck. "Well, not _exactly,_ but - listen, okay, Banner knows too, and-"

 _"What?"_

Before he has to sit through another hour of Natasha talking her way out of shoving a knife into Stark's head, Clint waves his hands in the universal gesture for _shut up, Natasha, please._ "Okay, listen, just listen. So I know and Banner knows and you know, and I assume that guy War Machine knows and Pepper knows, and that's _it._ So if you go telling SHIELD, you're going to have a raging Pepper Potts after you, okay? Not that you _would_ tell SHIELD, but if you did. And now we're going to go and visit Tony and see if he has any cool stuff for us, because Stark always has cool stuff for us. You ever notice that? The dude is full of cool stuff."

"We're going to go..."

"And hang out-"

"And hang out with _Tony Stark."_ It isn't a question.

Clint bounces to his feet and grins, feeling strangely defensive. And hey, who knew the engineer had wormed his way into Clint's affections, which he held close to his chest and never, ever let people get to?

Hey. Strange.

"C'mon, Nat."

XxXxX

Rhodey arrives in the middle of the night, suddenly and completely unexpectedly, landing on Tony's roof with a blast of hot air. War Machine, while bulkier, does look a lot more impressive than Iron Man in terms of sheer weight and size; Tony prefers Iron Man because of the _style_ attached to the suit. Red and gold and looking like everyone's worst nightmare?

Count him in.

"Tony! How you been?" Rhodey lets JARVIS pull the War Machine armour off him and, as soon as the chestplate is removed, he's wrapping his arms around Tony and squeezing him in a hug that's both far too tight and just tight enough. He smells of oil and sweat and more oil, because he won't let Tony upgrade the War Machine suit, and he smells of _Rhodey_ and college and _God, it's been too long._

"I've been good, good," Tony says, instead of vocalising all the stuff whirling-twirling through his mind. "You?"

"Just got back from a placement. Middle East. Back for a couple months. Mind if I crash here for a while?" Rhodey shouldn't have to ask, and he grins as he does so; he spends more time at Tony's place when he's off duty than he does at his own apartment, which is bland and empty and unlived him.

"Don't even have to ask, man," Tony grins, clapping his best friend on the shoulder. "Pepper's going to be glad you're back." It's as close as he can come to saying: _I'm happy you're here._ Tony Stark doesn't do emotion.

Rhodey smiles happily, comfortably, and Tony knows that while he may be a shitty person, he makes a goddamn good home for everyone, whether they be insane Russian superspies or grizzled old soldiers. "Thanks. Tell Pepper I'm glad, too." Rhodey also doesn't do emotion. _I'm glad to see you. Happy you're still in one piece, you crazy asshole._

"Want to come down to the lab? I - uh, I have a few people to introduce you to. And a slight problem, if you could call it that..." Tony trails off delicately, imagining Rhodey's inevitable clash with the rest of the team. Rhodey, who treats Tony like the insecure fourteen year old he was when they first met at MIT.

Nah. Nada. Nope. Nothappenin'.

"If you're going to try and force me into wearing an Iron Man-"

"Hell no! Just lemme fix War Machine-"

"Hell no!"

Tony smiles and laughs as Rhodey echoes, mocking and light, and lets himself relax like he hasn't since the incident with Black Widow and the Random Terrorist Organisation. She'll freak out, sure, but she'll tell Clint before anyone else and Tony is reasonably sure that the archer won't sell him out to SHIELD. And anyway, he hardly sees the superspy; when he comes up for air and an attempt to do the whole 'team bonding' shit, they all kind of...

Brush him off?

Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

"C'mon, man, you're going to love my new robot. Dummy loves him too, but I reckon Butterfingers is totally jealous of his motor engineering."

"Drama 'mongst the bots of Tony Stark." Rhodey's voice takes on the booming showbiz quality of a TV ad. "What does _your_ least favourite billionaire do on a Friday night? He lives through his little robots."

"Oi, like you didn't make me email you Dummy's first walk. You're like his dad. We're dads." Tony doesn't mind Rhodey's sniping. Rhodey does it as a _joke._

Tony is so, so, _so_ glad that Rhodey is here.

XxXxX

Natasha talks Clint out of going down to Stark's basement that night. She doesn't want to meet the 'real Tony'. She's met him, and he's a jerk. He's arrogant and he loves himself above all else and he doesn't care about anyone else and whatever guff Clint says about how Tony's secretly, like, wallowing in anxiety, she doesn't buy it.

Sure. She can work on a team with him. She can keep his damn secrets for him.

She won't like him.

And that's why, when she gets up for her usual four AM cup of coffee and catch-up-on-current-affairs, she's entirely unprepared for the unfamiliar face lounging on Stark's futon, Stark himself draped over the larger man's chest, both of them laughing crazily with used cups stacked up around them. Stark has melted, she realises, his eyes no longer sparkling with well-acted flair, but natural _happiness._

It's disconcerting.

Stark is disconcerting.

They don't see her; Natasha slinks back into the shadows to watch them. Observe. See Stark in his natural habitat, so to speak.

"So how're you _really_ holding up, Stark? Don't gimme all that bullshit," says the bigger man, poking Stark's shoulder.

"Rhodey-" Stark stops, burrows deeper into his pile of cushions, looking curiously childish for a fully grown man and a superhero to boot. "Okay, jeez, we are _so_ not doing this."

Rhodey, the bigger man - of course, War Machine - hits Stark on the head with a pillow. "I'm not giving up on you, man. We'll be old men and I'll just follow you around and hit you and say _remember that time the Avengers lived with you_ and you'll be really pissed off and then you'll die. Like that video of the old man with a spoon."

Stark laughs. Carefree. Strange. "Okay, quit. I'm fine, honest. You think I can't deal with them?"

"I think you can't deal with them."

"C'mon, they don't know I'm me! They think I'm avoiding them, right, and they love Iron Man. I got the best of both worlds-"

"Yeah. You said the archer knows?"

"Clint, and Bruce, and Natasha."

"That's three of them!" Rhodey looks more concerned than playful now, and Natasha presses farther into the darkness, feeling her heart face, excited and scared. She gets a kick from privacy invasion, how sick is that?

"Yeah, but-"

"But nothing. My ass. How's the Captain?" Natasha doesn't miss the carefully hidden admiration in the Colonel's voice. Everyone loves Captain America.

"Good."

 _"Tony."_

"He... uh, he likes Howard a lot."

 _"Tony."_

"He likes me!"

 _"Tony."_

"He likes Iron Man!"

Rhodey sighs. "Jesus, I hate you."

XxXxX

"So, when am I going to see your new son, Stark?"

Thor, Steve and Bruce all look up and Tony is forced to suppress his wild laughter. Rhodey fits right in, fits in a way Tony could only dream of, and he's working his friend's compatibility to his advantage. Added to the fact that only Clint has actually seen Ducky, the new bot, and Tony has a potential killer of a practical joke on hand for those on his team prone to taking things literally.

Literally.

"Soon. He walked for the first time last week," Tony says flippantly, pulling over the syrup and pouring copious amounts of it all over his high stack of waffles.

"Aw, man, did you film it?" Clint chips in, eyes winking devilishly.

Tony shakes his head, sorrow emanating from him. "Nah. I'm so mad. You wanna know his name?"

Rhodey snags one of Tony's waffles, shoving it in his mouth. "Mmfph. Tell me!"

"Ducky!"

"Ducky?"

"He didn't duck when I threw a spanner at him."

"Tony, you dumbass," Rhodey, Clint and Bruce all say within a heartbeat of each other, all with the same sort of fond tone in their voices.

Tony feels - can he say warm and fluffy? He can totally say warm and fluffy - Tony feels warm and fluffy, and as Clint smiles easily at him, he dares to hope that this might actually last. That this isn't some haven he created. That this will be real.

XxXxX

There's a fight.

Well, there's always a fight going on _somewhere,_ but this requires their help. (Doesn't it always?) It's Doom again - _again -_ and can't the Fantastic Four get off their asses once in a while and, y'know, help? Apparently, not, but Tony is used to coping with Doom's stupid little robots by now. He actually has anti-Doombot-guns installed in his shoulder packs.

 _"This guy! Someone's gotta just kill him already,"_ says Clint down the comms line, breaking Rogers rule of radio silence half a minute after it's announced.

Tony sighs. "Tell me about it. Anyone around care to give us a hand? X-Men? I know Wolverine could slice this guy. Like Doom jelly. Hell yeah."

 _"Uh... Young Avengers? Only ones in New York, and they're... like, seventeen. No one else."_

 _"Hawkeye and Iron Man. Resume radio silence."_ Captain America's _don't-fuck-with-me-I'm-a-patriotic-symbol_ voice echoes down the comm lines and the costumed archer and the suited billionaire both fell into cowed silence.

"I know not of these Young Avengers," Thor booms, a few moments later as they stand in a spread circle waiting for the first wave of Doom's bots. "Are they of us?"

"Nah. They're like a little baby version of us, 'cept their leader is this total badass chick calling herself Hawkeye. Patriot is sort of like Cap, I guess, a little, and... uh, there's this kid Billy, he's like Scarlet Witch - you know, Magneto's kid-"

Thor shakes his head. "All these people. I cannot make out how you remember relations. In Asgard, we have just our Royal Family and our trusted advisors. Sif, the Warriors Three, and I, once upon a time. Asgard-"

"Asgard's for you simpler folk, yeah?" Clint chuckles, and then the Doombots are flying everywhere around him and Tony is too busy blasting to continue the conversation.

Oh, well.

(The Young Avengers _do_ turn up for a while. The Speed kid is useful, but the two Hawkeyes work so fluidly together Tony can feel Natasha's bubbling fury. No one is allowed to work with the archer better than she does.)

"I smite less than I should have!" Thor complains as they're all making their slow way back to the Tower, aching and dreaming of long, hot baths and comfortable mattresses.

Tony claps the god on the back. "Just how the dice rolls, buddy."

Thor grunts, and they go their separate ways.

XxXxX

Thor is sitting on the roof when Tony makes the journey, which shakes the engineer a little. The roof, while never definitely claimed as _his,_ has nevertheless not seemed to hold any of the other's interest long enough to make them want to make it _theirs._

The sight of the blonde Prince of Asgard, therefore, is a shock.

Thor, although he _has_ to have heard Tony approach, doesn't turn around.

Oh, God.

It's gonna be _angst time._

"Hey, big guy," Tony tries, padding over to Thor in just his socks, pants and a loose black shirt that does little to conceal the arc reactor. Whatever, it's not like Thor will know what it is, right? "Thor, you good?"

The god sighs heavily. His hammer rests on his knees, and he swings it around his wrist absently. Tony wonders if Thor is aware of how much _power_ he holds; Thor could very possibly swing that thing and knock down - hell, _anything,_ if it was swung fast enough. "I am fine, Stark. I am fine."

"Okay, that's your everything-is-not-fine voice. What's up? You can tell your favourite dislikeable patron," Tony says airily, swinging his legs around and linking his fingers together. The feeling of being on top of the world, looking down at his own tower, his own home, is almost unbeatable. He made this place with blood and sweat and steel.

"You have your Colonel, yes?" Thor seems to deviate a little. "And Clint has Natasha. And the Captain has the man he talks about. And Banner has you."

Tony blinks. Behind them, the sun sets. "Yeah, I guess. What's up? Down, or whatever. What's wrong?"

Thor attacks the problem from another side. "I know how to fix a man's arm after injury, and I know how the alignment of the stars will correlate to the wellbeing of you and I on Earth. I know many things. Dearest Jane told me I should gain a 'degree' with my knowledge. Then how do you all assume that I am Thor, good for nothing but smashing and being of Asgard? Your technology - saving yours, friend Stark - is of the standard in our museums. How do you assume I am nothing but brawn?" The speech leaves the god impassioned and breathless.

Tony stops, thinks, gapes.

Behind them, the sun sinks down below the horizon.

Thor's right, isn't he?

Of course Asgard would be more advanced than Earth, and it makes all the sense in the world that the Prince would be educated. And to that degree, too. Poor Thor, right? Everyone _does_ treat him like some stupid Neanderthal. Tony claps the god on the back. "Just how the dice rolls, buddy." (It isn't.)

And it makes sense that Thor's a smart guy. You would have to be, to survive in Alien City that long. (And keep that good lookin' face. Tony. Shut up, you asshole.)

Really, Earth's kind of a judgemental place.

They sit in silence for a while, and it's not as awkward as Tony might have thought. He kicks his feet against the side of his building and idly wonders if his sock fell off, would it kill one of the people walking along below them, small as ants?

"You know," Thor says, offhandedly and seemingly out of the blue, "you remind me in many ways of my brother."

" _Loki?"_ Tony isn't sure he likes being compared to an insane murderer.

"In many ways," Thor repeats. A smile tugs at where Tony has chased the sullen mope away. "Loki could change his looks at will, but always I could tell who he pretended to be."

Tony stays silent. He has a feeling Thor's going to tell him anyway, and an uncomfortable feeling has replaced the contentment. (Not another one.)

"His mannerisms, you see, although he was not aware, gave him away every time. Tell me, friend Tony, how long have you been masquerading as Iron Man? It is an admirable effort, but I am forced to wonder if it is just I you have hidden this from." Thor looks at him, blue eyes devoid of ulterior motives.

Surprisingly, Tony doesn't actually freak out this time. "Since the start. I didn't tell anyone."

"But they found out." Hey, since when has Thor been able to navigate the loopholes in the English language? No fair.

"I guess. Yeah." Tony squirms. "Listen, I-"

"As I say. Friend Tony, I admire your dedication. And you are like Loki in many ways, not just in his way of disguises. In his way of using a veil of arrogance and sharp wit to hide his emotions. I admire that, for to hide one's feelings is not easy, but I advise you to confide in someone." Thor smiles once more, kind and happy, and Tony finds himself smiling back.

So now only the Cap left.

And let's see how _that one_ turns out, huh?

 **A.N**

 **Thank you all for the reviews, they actually do motivate me to writing more for this! I had this typed out for ages and ages as a oneshot before the real story because _cute,_ but never published it. And now here it is. Yay. Thor is wise and full of wisdom for Tony. Steve and the plus-one left! Reviews always appreciated!**


	6. Rogers

Natasha is glad the Colonel is staying for the next few days. He's already given her plenty to stew over for a few hours at the least, and he's pretty good company when you get a few drinks into him. He talks all about his days in MIT and his following appointment as a lance-corporal to the 7th Division out in Iraq. She tries to get him to talk about Stark, but -

He, apparently, has unshakeable morals.

Natasha can't even get him to spill his guts on Stark, which irritates her, because she knows on instinct that a guy like that won't react to that red dress with the plunging hemline she's been just dying to use in an interrogation since Pepper Potts bought it with her.

Damn.

"Don't think I don't know what you're trying to do," the Colonel warns, his finger weaving slightly as he tries to pin her with an accusing stare. "You're tryin' to get to Tony and snoop around. Stopppit."

Natasha pinches the bridge of her nose to quell her rising annoyance. "Fine. I'll go talk to him the conventional way," she snaps, and sweeps away from the drunken Colonel as fast as her snappy shoes can take her.

XxXxX

"Heya, Tony," Clint drops down from the roof and lands next to the inventor, who passes him a holographic arrowhead with no comment. "Come on, man, you know I can't work these things. I - hold up, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Tony says with faked cheer, shaking off the sensation that someone is watching him. "Just a little tired, is all. Look, you expand it out, see?"

Clint watches his hands. "No idea. Point is, what does it do?"

"Covers the target in expanding goo. It should harden in the sun, see?" Tony's hand moves to a black component nestling in a cartridge, "it expands and it's light as I can make, so it shouldn't be too hard to adjust to make for weight. And it takes ages to break free. Cool, huh?" Tony's smile of pride is infectious, and Clint can't help but smile back.

"Awesome. You mind if I go-" Clint gestures upwards, the signal to go and kick some minor butt in the back alleys and use some assholes as target practice. Usually, Tony is only too happy to let his prototypes go. But-

"No, hold on, I need you here for another minute and then you can go," Tony shoves a handful of arrows into Clint's hands and spins around the workbench, apparently looking for something. "Goddamnit! Have you seen - okay, what's Romanoff's favourite colour? Does anyone know? I asked Bruce and he thought I was joking, and, like, why would I joke? Pass me that thing there - no, _there-_ " Tony whirls around some more.

Clint, lost in a sea of words, just blinks in bafflement. "Why'd you wanna know Nat's favourite colour? No offence, but - _why?"_

"Well, _duh,"_ says Tony, coming to a halt with a flip book of leather samples in all colours, "so I can make it the colour of the seat of her new bike, you dumbass. I was thinking red? But I don't know, just 'cause it co-ordinates doesn't mean she would like it. And I made your arrow flights purple and chrome because I know you like them, but I wanna-"

"Huh. You did." Clint flicks at the flights on the goo arrow. "I hadn't noticed. Man, that's cool."

Tony rolls his eyes. "Colour? Now?"

And then a smooth voice rolls out from the shadows, "it's dark, dark red." Natasha Romanoff, Natalie Rushman, or Emma whatshername, depending on who you're talking to, simply moulds out of the shadows.

Clint watches Tony, who groans loudly and slams his head into Clint's arm. "Why is she _here?_ Who let her _in?_ Why is she _here?"_

"Because," Natasha says, in her talking-to-friends voice, "I wanted to observe."

Clint's arm may be muscular, but it's not numb. Well. It is _now_ because Tony is slamming his head into his biceps, but for a while back there it had _hurt._ Now it's just dead.

"Observe? Huh."

"You're a good guy, Sta- _Tony._ Thanks for the bike." And Natasha dissolves away again in that special thing she does that Clint is totally envious of. And _don't_ think he hasn't missed the millisecond where she made the judgement that probably means more to Tony than he'll ever admit.

Natasha doesn't call many people by their first names. It's a list comprising of Clint, and - well, Phil, but _don't go there_ \- and Pepper, now, because they share some girl-bro-code Clint doesn't understand.

Clint watches Tony fight off a bemused, deliriously happy smile, like a puppy that knows it'll be kicked if it barks when it's shown affection. (Or something. Clint isn't good with his imagery.)

"Red. Dark red." Tony flips through his leather book, and doesn't notice when Clint slips off to go and goo some douchebags down a dark alleyway. He _does_ ask for feedback later, but until then Clint is free to shoot awesome trick arrows and think about how awesome the billionaire is, and how much Natasha messed up on her initial report.

Seriously, how did she come to that conclusion?

Ugh. Russians.

Clint grins darkly, and kicks a white-rapper-kid type in the face, executing a sloppy circus backflip Barney taught him.

The life of a superspy is so. Much. Fun.

XxXxX

"That was so _awesome!"_ Clint yells, tramping into the communal kitchen and kicking off his bloodstained boots because otherwise, Tony's bots get mad.

And it totally was. The bit where Natasha had done this triple backflip thing off a roof and landed on a flying alien, shooting straight into it's brain and knocking it's corpse into another one? As Tony clatters down from the roof landing pad, changed and suitably non-Iron-Man-looking for the benefit of the dear Captain, he smiles in memory. (Plus, Natasha is cool now. He's not sure what he _did_ to deserve Natasha being cool to him now, but she calls him cute pet names in Russian because she thinks he doesn't know how to speak it. Adorable, see?)

"How did it go?" Tony asks as the others file in after the adrenaline-filled archer, looking exhausted, amused, grumpy and hyperactive depending on how close to the action they had been. Tony himself is pretty riled up - he flew into the mother-alien-thing - but he's doing his best to hide it.

Natasha drapes herself over the kitchen island, punching the coffee maker. "Oh, _котенок_ , as though you weren't watching." Her lips tug into a small smirk, and Tony kicks at her foot.

"Ten blocks of downtown Manhattan were destroyed. Do you know how much damage that will cost out of _our_ money?" The Captain, apparently, is verging on irritable. Tony doesn't remember what Rogers was doing during the alien invasion, but it must have been something boring, or he wouldn't be itching for a fight.

"Aw, lighten up, Cap'n," Clint says. "Hey, Banner, you want a check on that?"

The doctor is holding his leg, which looks bloodstained beneath Tony's stretchable trousers. He's still proud of those, by the way. Bruce shakes his head, smiling lightly, "Thanks, but no. Big Guy basically takes care of all that stuff, y'know? I might just grab a bite and go to bed. Or - JARVIS, how long is the reaction time-"

" _You have three days until the compound becomes chemically unstable."_

"Okay, so, yeah. That's my plan." Bruce straightens up as his leg sews itself up, and not for the first time Tony wonders what he did in his past that landed him with the best people he could ever have hoped to work with. (And the Cap, of course.) "Tony, can you get the cups?"

"Aye. And pop the tarts in the tart popper," Thor booms from the doorframe.

Tony whirls around, happy to comply, and Clint joins him to slam butter and Nutella and jelly around the kitchen island, juggling them and giggling every time he almost drops them. Things are pretty much perfect; he's running on an adrenaline high, most people are talking to him, and-

"We still have to deal with the reparations, you know!" Exclaims Rogers in his _more-patriotic-than-thou_ voice. Which really, really pisses Tony off, by the way. This guy? This guy just _sucks._ He's everything Howard said he was.

"Chill, cool it, calm your tits, do all of the above," Tony says instead, waving his hand in the air languidly. "I can get the money. Billionaire, remember?"

And that, when he looks back later, is when it all really starts to go down the drain.

"You can just wave away the destruction of homes - of _livelihoods -_ like that? Hundreds of people, and it's nothing to you?" The Captain seems more disbelieving than angry, but Tony is way too good at reading anger. This is the type of fury where someone can't _believe how stupid you've been, Anthony, how could you think that would work? You're a disgrace to everything I've worked so hard to make!_

Beside Tony, Clint stiffens.

"Uh. Billionaire, again. 'Sides, isn't it better? That way everyone gets a handy little pocket and their businesses back and boom, investments in Stark Industries go right up when they see what a wonderful guy I am. I'll even make the donations anonymous, and then I'll be a _modest_ wonderful guy. Awesome!" Tony leans back further on the counter, trying to disguise the fact that he's totally using the archer as a shield against what is, when you come right down to it, over six feet of honed muscle and trained soldier that once punched Hitler in the face. (According to Da - according to Howard.)

Rogers face twists up, full of righteous disgust. "So all this is just for your own gain? People died, Stark, good people, and your man went up against aliens, and you sat in your bedroom on your little computer and thought about _money."_

Tony leans even further into the counter, having perfected the nonchalant gaze partnered with the subtle protective stance. He's pretty sure it's not missed on Banner, damn him, who narrows his eyes from the sofa - but, thankfully, doesn't intervene. "I'm just trying to think of it from all angles here, Cap. And all the baddies are dead, anyways, so the game's over!"

Rogers leans forward, so that only the simmering coffee machine and the island separate them. Woah. Uncomfortably close, much? "A _game?_ All those people - a _game?"_

"No, but it helps to think of it that way." The rest of Tony's sentence dies.

Clint is no idiot. He sees a defensive pose when it's there, and Tony isn't being remotely subtle about it, either. "Yo, cap, you wanna calm down a sec? I-"

Rogers rolls his eyes. "No, you know what? I am sick to the gills of Stark. He-" the soldier jabs his finger into Tony's chest roughly, and the billionaire flinches- "He has killed people, killed them for money, and he rides on the back of Iron Man's good deeds to be a complete disgrace! He's the son of my best friend! He could at least _try_ to act a little more like him!"

"Steve-"

"No, Brucie, I wanna hear it out," Tony says smoothly. Clint _sees_ him ironing out the panic from his eyes, neat and clean and quick. "C'mon, Cap, anything else you're simply _dying_ to get off your chest?"

Rogers seems to realise that the entire team is not, in fact, gearing up on his side, and instead of deflating, just _explodes_ like he's been dying to do since the very beginning. "I do, as a matter of fact. You're spoiled and you rely on some sort of computer in the walls, and you didn't attend your own father's memorial service! You were meant to be the one person in this damn century I was going to relate to, and you're nothing, _nothing_ like what Howard was!" Rogers jabs Tony's chest again, and Bruce hisses sharply as Tony recoils.

Not. Cool.

"Okay, cap, how about-"

"Nah, man, let's run through it," Tony says, and he's shaking, Clint can feel him trembling beside him. Natasha places a hand on Tony's forearm, glaring at Steve. "Okay, I'm spoiled. Hell yeah I am, you built that bastard's empire up, you gave him the money to give me all the toys I wanted and subsequently broke with no thought to what would happen to them, right? I rely on JARVIS, yeah, you're right again, whom I made in my second year of college while drunk off my ass and also, coincidentally, fifteen-fuckin'-years-old. I didn't attend that bastard's funeral, and Clint didn't attend his dad's and I'm pretty sure neither did Bruce. And if I was anything like Howard was, you'd have a broken goddamn arm for what you just said to me." Tony stops, chest heaving, trembling like a leaf in a gale but still holding the captain's astonished gaze. "Oh, and Iron Man? The guy you love so damn much? That dude, he's me. So - so - so leave me _alone!"_

"Oh," says Steve, and Tony runs for the elevator faster than Speed himself.

"Oh? _Oh?"_ Clint shakes his head disgustedly. "You asshole." He leaves after Tony, shooting a dirty look at Steve as he goes.

"Read the files they give you, for once," Natasha says, and follows.

Bruce is next. "You. Didn't. Do that. Very. Well." He rubs his nose, and hurries away, limping.

Thor sighs. "I am ashamed."

And Steve is left alone with a plate of burnt Pop Tarts and a guilty conscience the size of the moon.

XxXxX

"Tony, jesus, what's wrong?" Rhodey, in the lab, looks up in alarm.

"I just yelled at Captain America," Tony whispers in a horrified tone. "And now the Avengers all hate me and I totally messed up _again_ and-"

"Calm down-"

"We don't hate you, you jerk," says a familiar voice, and someone, probably - _definitely -_ Clint, screeches _group hug_ and Tony is trapped.

And it's not bad.

But-

But-

But _Captain America._

And that's a task for another day, right?

XxXxX

 **A.N**

 **All shall be resolved in the plus-one chapter coming soon! Thank you so much for the reviews, they're so motivating to kick my ass into banging out new content, and new reviews are so awesome too. Love y'all.**


	7. After

**+1.**

Steve stares, horrified, at the door, which still swings slightly from the whole team's mass exodus. He can feel the worry creeping around him and wrapping tendrils of guilt all over his mind; but how was he to know?

 _You could have been more astute. You could have realised something was going on. You could have talked to him. And now he's Iron Man, and you've messed your life up for yourself. Well_ _ **done,**_ _Steve._ He stands and stares and thinks and in the end, just sinks into Stark's recently-vacated chair, putting his head in his hands and rubbing his throbbing temples. He can't believe - he is _Captain America,_ a symbol of truth and kindness and honesty and treating everybody the same no matter what, and here he is yelling at some poor man just because he doesn't act like a long-dead billionaire. And not a very _nice_ dead billionaire, as well, if Stark's dark hints are anything to go by.

Oh, God.

What has Steve done?

He thinks about leaving, he really does. He thinks about it for half a second, and then he forgets it, because leaving would be the most cowardly thing he could do right now.

All he can do is apologise and get Stark - _Tony -_ to kick him out instead.

Lucky for Steve that Captain America never cries, huh?

XxXxX

 _I mean, he's right, but it doesn't mean I gotta be happy about that._

 _Hell, I know he's right, doesn't mean I can't yell at him._

 _Oh, shit, I yelled at **Captain America.**_

 _Yeah, dad's rolling in his grave right now. They're gonna have news coverage on Fox. Strangely twirling gravestone evidence of homosexual agenda?_

 _He's right._

 _I know he's right._

 _But I can't help but be angry, all the_ _same._

"Sir, you are vocalising your thoughts. This would indicate extreme levels of stress or pressure." Ah, Jarvis, never failing to tell Tony when he was an idiot. Thanks, robot in the roof. Thanks. Tony glares up at the ceiling, a habit he's picked up from Barton. Damn these people.

"Yeah, sure, Jarvis. Play the suit playlist, will you? And lock the workshop door. But leave Barton's vents open, or I think he might cry. And while that would be adorable-"

"Sir-"

"Okay. Yeah." Tony steels himself against the workshop as his AI obediently begins to blast _Paranoid._ Ah, Sabbath. Kind of creepily accurate song choice, too, Jarvis, right? Tony stays like that, just standing and breathing to the beat, and then does his best to forget the whole damn situation. It was going to blow up anyway, they all knew that, and Tony had probably been an insensitive prick again. He usually was.

"Sir? Would you like me to extend the holograms of the Mark VII?" Jarvis prompts. Tony instantly feels even more pathetic - he can't even get his _work_ done without his robots, now.

 _Take that away, what are you?_

"Jarvis, throw up Natasha's bike instead," Tony says through gritted teeth, tossing aside a sparkling blue component, which skids back into place. The suit folds itself back into another blue container, and that tucks itself away out of existence.

It's then that he realises the others haven't actually _left_ since the bizarre group hug half an hour ago. He's just been so self-absorbed he didn't see past the blue barriers of his holograms. Oh, _man._ "Hey, guys."

"You yelled at Captain America?" Rhodey raises an eyebrow. "Why do I get the feeling there's more to this story somewhere?"

Tony groans. "Jarvis, do I have any software that will just kill me and end the suffering?" He means it as a joke, but judging on the looks on everyone's faces, it flops a little. "Shit, guys, I fuc-"

" _You_ didn't."

"Yeah, I-"

"Shut _up,_ Tony," Natasha practically snarls, "or I'm going to have to go up and murder Steve Rogers and be kicked out of SHIELD all because you're annoyingly endearing, okay?" She steps forward and it takes all of Tony's willpower not to step back, because Natasha in a righteous fury is _scary_ even when he knows full well that fury isn't directed at him.

"Another group hug?" He whines plaintively.

"Hell _yeah,"_ Clint says, and then there are arms everywhere and Tony has never felt warmer.

XxXxX

Steve tugs at the end of his shirt, feeling awful, his bag hanging off his shoulder. The picture is idyllic; he's walked in on the rec room intending to catch Tony alone to apologise and get out, but instead he finds Natasha leaning on Stark's shoulder, Barton curled up next to them both, Tony with his head resting on Clint's. It's like one of those family photographs that totally-obviously-weren't-staged-at-all in the magazines, except this one really isn't. It's -

Steve has messed up bad.

"Hello, Rogers," Natasha says coolly without turning her head. "What do you want?"

And don't think Steve misses the momentary tightening in Tony's shoulders, surprise turning to a mixture of fear and anticipation. _Damn it all._ And don't think Steve misses Clint's arm tightening around Tony and his whole body telling the world that to get to Stark they'll have to go through him, first.

"I - Stark," Steve breaks off, tugs at his shirt, " _Tony,_ I just wanted to - to apologise, and to get out, but I wanted to say sorry first. I didn't -"

Tony turns around, one eyebrow raised, and Steve still sees that protective armour like a shell all around. "Cap, you got nothing to apologise for, okay? Sure, you assumed I was an asshole, most people do, 'cause I _am_ an asshole. Just quit with the Howard stuff, and don't move out, for God's sakes." And that's not right either, Tony shouldn't take it like this, as if _he_ was the one to blame. As if _he'd_ been the one treating other people based on reports and third-hand knowledge gleaned from televisions. Not right at all.

"And this the part where we leave," Natasha says, slinking out of her comfortable position and prodding Clint's shoulder. "Come on, Barton."

Clint looks at her with a confused expression. "But it was just getting good - ow!"

Tony watches them leave, smiling a little, acting for all the world like he's completely fine with this situation. Like Steve hasn't wrecked _everything._ "See ya, Barton. Go down to the workshop and ask Jarvis for the new designs." The door closes. "So, Cap'n, what did you want me for?"

"I wanted to apologise," Steve settles for, because there's nothing else he can think of. The phrase falls flat in an atmosphere suddenly tingling with tension.

"And I told you, there's nothing to-"

"Yeah, there is! You took it upon yourself to _not_ tell anyone you were saving the world in a metal suit you made by yourself, while members of your own team and the rest of the damn world criticized you left, right and centre! That's not fair!"

Tony scrambles around to properly face Steve for the first time, and he can't help but be drawn to the blue light shining from the other man's chest. "Listen, Cap, I was pissed off about the whole Howard thing and how mad you were all the fuckin' time because I'm not him, but I can seriously appreciate it, okay?" He looks surprisingly serious, and far more animated than Steve expected. "So can you please put the goddamn bag down, and lets agree to not be dumb? Okay?"

And no.

It's not okay.

But as Steve lets the bag drop numbly to his feet, and stumbles over it in an attempt to hug the man in front of him, he thinks it might be the beginning of an okay sort of thing.

And he can work with that.

XxXxX

"Tony, throw the nutella."

"Get it yourself," Tony retorts, although he does toss the chocolate spread in Steve's direction as he's balancing plates of toast on his arms. "Barton! Get your glorious purple ass down here right now!"

Steve grins as Natasha intercepts the jar, and the supersoldier shoves over on the couch to allow Bruce to settle between them.

"Where's Clint?"

"I repeat. Purple ass." Tony whirls around the kitchen island, a possessed demon with a stack of 'modern' films and a limited amount of time to watch them. "Bar- _ton!_ Do you want to miss Captain America reacting to Toy Story 3?"

"Whoop!" There's a banging from the roof.

"Damn vents. I should close 'em. Hey, Emma, catch!" Tony flings the disc at Natasha, and Steve ducks. (None of them have ever worked out why Tony calls her Emma. It's some inside joke, obviously, but _why?_ Weird.) Natasha extends an arm lazily, pinching the disc between her fingers without any effort at all. "Good call."

Clint bursts through the doors, beaming. "Aw, Steve, you're going to cry so bad at this. I would feel sorry for you if it wasn't for - _Captain America_ crying at Toy Story."

Tony feels like he's going to explode with laughter when Steve raises a sceptical eyebrow and says, "I doubt I'm going to cry at a cartoon."

"Oh, _man."_ Bruce has a rare shit-eating grin on his face, his head resting on Natasha's shoulder. "Oh, _man._ This is going to be fun."

"Hell yeah," Clint grins.

Tony leans against the chair, tapping idly at the DVD box, "So for comparison, Stevie, remember Titanic?" He _knows_ Steve remembers Titanic. Tony laughed 'till he cried when he saw Captain America himself with his face buried in a cushion, squeaking whenever anyone said _I'll never let go_ for the next two weeks. At Steve's hesitant nod, he grins, "Well, Toy Story 3 is like Titanic, but with tiny little toys. And burning."

Steve rolls his eyes. "Just play the damn thing."

"With pleasure," Tony says, and Jarvis sets the credits rolling. He hardly has to hesitate to snuggle between Bruce and Steve with Clint lying across them both, Thor taking up a whole other armchair due to his enormous bulk. (And the Asgardian hasn't seen the movie, either. Fun!)

Tony pulls Clint's arm further up his chest. "Archer blankie."

"Idiot," Steve says fondly.

Tony smiles so wide he thinks it might actually split his face in two.

XxXxX

"Hey."

"Hey." Tony looks up from his black espresso, puzzled to see Steve standing in the doorway. Isn't it, like, three in the morning? Shouldn't he be asleep? "Why're you up so late?"

Steve frowns. "I could say the same for you, you know." Carefully, like Tony is some sort of porcelain pot, Steve takes the seat beside him, and Tony barely contains an eye-roll. Here he thought they were over all this shit about fighting and Iron Man and identities and shit. Ugh.

"You want coffee?"

Steve eyes him up. Tony doesn't allow himself to feel uncomfortable. He _isn't_ anyway, not anymore. Not when Steve - not when everyone - not when they're all finally okay. "Sure," the supersoldier says, "I'll get myself something." He makes no effort to move. "Why _are_ you up so late, anyway?"

"I dunno, just couldn't sleep," Tony shrugs into his cup, screaming _fuckyousteve_ internally. He is way too tired for heart-to-hearts with Mister America right now.

"You should sleep."

"I should. Don't wanna. Don't needa."

"Yeah, you do."

Tony takes a break from the sullen coffee stare to survey Steve. He looks - _worried,_ actually. Probably about the next mission, right? Damn him. "I'll be in full working order next time we get a call to assemble, I promise."

"Dammit, Tony!" Steve grabs at a fistful of his hair, and wow, okay, unexpected anger. At him? Tony hopes to hell not. And - oh _no,_ here come the motherfucking _puppy eyes -_ "Tony, I don't care about the team! It's not healthy for _you_ to keep doing this!"

Oh.

Okay?

Well, this is weird.

This is so weird that Tony doesn't even notice Steve has forced him into bed until he is, the soft glow of his arc reactor comfortably lulling him into sleep.

Weird.

XxXxX

"You're doing _what?!"_ Natasha asks disbelievingly.

"I'm doing a press conference about the identity of Iron Man," Tony says for the third time in three minutes.

Clint's mouth drops open. "What are you going to _say,_ man?"

"Lie, obviously."

"But-"

"Shut up, Stevie, I gotta put on my TV face."

It kind of hurts Steve still to see how smoothly Tony turns into Stark, how his face wipes clean only to be replaced by a jaunty grin and a weight to his walk. Tony fixes his suit and strokes down his tie. "I look wonderful. Let's go."

Clint groans.

Natasha bites her lip.

Bruce frowns anxiously and lets his hand linger on Tony's shoulder, a silent comfort.

Steve settles for pinching the palm of his hand in silent worry.

XxXxX

"What can you tell us about the identity of Iron Man?"

He _meant_ to say Rhodey. That was the _plan._

Tony stretches his arms wide and grins, lets the flashing cameras capture the moment.

"I am Iron Man!"

XxXxX

 **A.N**

 **So this is over. And that's cool. (Seriously, I did _not_ expect it to go on as long as it did.) I feel like this whole thing was a little flimsy, if I'm honest, and it started out as something that was going to be 5000 words, tops. Now it's, like, 20k. Thanks for all the wonderful reviews throughout!**

 **I kind of have a proposition for anyone who wants to do something with me. (By something I mean write a long-ass depowered AU about all of these guys including little background characters of everyone else in 616, if that's cool.) So, if anyone wants to write with me, please send a message! I have a cool idea but I need someone else 'cause I am no way able to write this stuff out. Too much effort.**

 **Thank you for reading!**


	8. Postscript

**Sorry - this is not an update!**

 **However, if you enjoyed this story and you'd like more Tony-feeling-terrible, angst in general and some stuff written by me, try checking out the new fic on my profile called "A ghost in human skin", which is more plot-based and will be far longer than this fic has been.**

 **I've been overwhelmed at how nice everyone has been about my writing and storylines, so I hope you'll enjoy this one as well.**


End file.
